Description
| Name of text: | Description |
| Author of text: | Al-Mukaddasi |
| Date of text: | 985 |
| Date of person in text: | |
| Name of structure in text: | Umayyad Mosque/Great Mosque of Damascus |
| Type of structure in text: | mosque |
| Date of structure in text | 8th century |
| Century of structure 1: | 8 AD |
| Century of structure 2: | |
| Country in text: | Syria |
| Region in text: | |
| City in text: | Damascus |
| Specific place of mosaic in text: | Inner walls of the mosque, vaulting above arcades, arched windows, roofs, the Treasure House (Bait Mai), the dome |
| Description of mosaic in text: | Figures of trees, towns, and inscriptions. Arabesque designs. Mukaddasi provides a long detailed description of the mosaics and how they were made. |
| Mosaic date in text: | 8 AD |
| Tesserae silver mentioned in text? | No |
| Tesserae gold mentioned in text? | Yes |
| Colour descriptions in text: | black mottled yellow grey red |
| Bibliography: | Le Strange, Guy, trans., Palestine under the Moslems (London: Alexander P. Watt, 1890), A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from AD 650 to 1500, translated from the works of the Mediaeval Arab Geographers, pp.227-30 Le Strange's text sourced from M. J. Goeje, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum (Leiden: 1870, 1873), vol. 3 |
| URLs: | |
| Comments: | Mukaddasi notes that Khalif al Walid brought skilled workmen from Persia, India, Western Africa, and Byzantium and spent the whole revenues of Syria for seven years, plus eighteen shiploads of gold and silver from Cypris. Byzantine Emperor and the Moslem Amirs also donated precious stones and other materials for the mosaics. There is a note in the margin of one of M's manuscripts describing technical details such as composition and colour of tesserae, and the method of application of them |